


This Kind of Love

by agidged



Category: Wentworth (TV)
Genre: Background Relationships, Bridget's former love, F/F, Falling In Love, Implied/Referenced Character Death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-13
Updated: 2019-08-13
Packaged: 2020-08-20 19:44:10
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,663
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20233348
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/agidged/pseuds/agidged
Summary: Bridget reveals the story of her previous lover to Franky. Set after Franky has been out on parole and she and Bridget are getting to know each other better.





	This Kind of Love

**Author's Note:**

> I recognize that I am late to WENTWORTH TV. Luckily, I did discover it, and when I did, I fell in love, hard and fast, with Bridget Westfall/Franky Doyle. I hope that late is better than never, and that you enjoy hearing a little tidbit about Bridget's past.
> 
> Credit to lyrics: “Tomorrow may be brighter now, even yesterday is new” (from Now Until Forever, the Giants) and “Can I be the one you talk about in all your stories?” (from Can I be Him, James Arthur).

Bridget caught her reflection in the mirror. She stopped short, and then smiled ruefully at herself. This was life’s next adventure, sweeping her away on its relentless tide. See how you feel in the moment, she had counselled one of her clients. If you fall in love, you fall in love. Fuck the labels - and everything else. She always did have strong convictions.

************

When Franky asked her, as she knew she would, about her former relationships, Bridget took a deep breath and told her the story of Adele. More than anything else in her adult life, including her excellent education, the intersection of her life with Adele’s shaped her into the Bridget of today. Their fresh, sweet, floundering love, ushered them into adulthood where they began finding different answers to the big questions: How do I want to live? What is my life to mean? They lived these questions for nearly ten years, until there was an unexpected end.

They were truly idealists. Bridget wasn’t surprised when Adele joined Doctors without Borders. Her vision had always included service to others. She became bored and restless with mediocrity, found the monotony of the day-to-day unreasonable, railed against the shallow and stupid, and, generally, made her well-formed opinions known. During her restless times you could feel her yearning for cosmic purpose, for more than the predetermined confines of a home, a city, a country. She was dynamite, and it was ‘right’ for her to live a high-risk life that channelled her abundant energy into real relief for others.

So she intermittently leapt into those relentlessly difficult places where most of humanity shuns to tread: the impossible corners full of danger and disease and destruction. Bridget called it compassionate wanderlust. Adele joked that it was attachment disorder. Whatever it was, it was something that Bridget simply wasn’t. But what an admirer Bridget made: loyal, giving, an intellectual and spiritual equal, a wellspring of fresh, forgiving, unconditional support. They considered their bond sacred, almost other-worldly, a gift, something rare and beautiful, a privilege to accept.

Reunions became a passionate rush of lost time, a torrent of I love you’s, and I missed you, and I’m so glad you’re here. Bridget was always more than ready to welcome Adele back into her bed where they sought to express the inexpressible. Everything that Adele had witnessed and experienced was laid at Bridget’s feet, like an offering; and whether it was beautiful or utterly horrible, Bridget accepted it, respected it, knew how to keep it safe.

And, while it didn’t look like it from the outside, Adele was devoted to Bridget. Yes, she needed Bridget’s steadiness, her calm thoughtfulness, needed Bridget’s ear and her embrace. And yes, Bridget Westfall was the whole package. But Adele knew that she wasn’t taking advantage of Bridget: she was attuned to her lover’s inner workings and knew, with certainty, that she was right for Bridget and Bridget was right for her, no matter what it looked like from the outside.

Bridget had her own problem with boredom and mediocrity and shallowness. Bridget needed someone challenging, an equal in intellect and emotional depth. And, Adele knew what risk and excitement did to Bridget, how it brought out an urgent abandonment in her, stirred her in her depths. Adele knew a secret that few knew: that behind the perfection of her lover, her magnificent beauty and alluring grace, there was an untamed spirit that had a wildness of its own. So while she knew that Bridget worried over her and was quick to get angry over ‘senseless risks’ (so, so sexy), she also knew that Bridget thrived here on the cusp of surety and doubt, sensibility and senselessness, risk and reward, the impossible and the practical. Their relationship as steadfast, but intermittent, lovers worked because of this. It simply was what it was, and it was what it was because of who they were, both separate and together.

Bridget turned away a parade of suitors, male and female (some more persistent than others). And, she had to deal with family and friends rehashing the trite (and tiring) sentiment of how she had ‘so much to give’. The implication wasn’t lost on her: she was wasting her love, her youth, her time… waiting for Adele. Even if Bridget did think that (sometimes, in the loneliest and darkest hours), she simply wasn’t drawn to anyone else. Admittedly, sometimes she wished she were. But who could compare to Adele? Whose other half could make her whole? Their lives were vastly different in practice and tempo, but what did that really matter when love had intertwined their souls?

One day when Bridget was at work, she got a phone call from Adele’s parents. She read the number display and knew there would be only one reason for them to call. (They never approved of her – they blamed her for ‘putting all sorts of philosophical nonsense’ in their daughter’s head and ‘encouraging her to be reckless’ with her life. She was their only child. They feared for her. But they were powerless against her strong will, just as Bridget was, and their concerns for her safety, and to get 'a normal life' fell on deaf ears.)

This day, Bridget was attuned to the hollowed out, crumbling voices (and wails) that bespoke crisis. Her gut immediately knew the meaning of the call, and eventually, her brain allowed for the outline of scanty detail: Adele had been a victim in a violent attack. There were some heroics involved (Bridget laugh-cried) and Adele succumbed to internal injuries enroute to medical help. Adele wasn’t coming home. Adele had burned herself out. She was gone.

This was the first real shock of Bridget’s life. It would serve her well professionally, to personally experience the impact of such news, to be blindsided by utter devastation. A distant surrealness slammed into her and left her reeling for days, weeks, months. How could Adele not be coming home? Adele beat the odds. Adele always came home. It was all seemed too slippery to contain, too much to comprehend.

Despite her disinclination to travel, she offered to go to Africa and accompany her lover's body home. It was the least she could do. But the parents made it clear that Bridget had done enough damage, what with her enabling this to happen, and could she please just leave them alone to mourn their loss by themselves? Bridget attended the funeral, surrounded by two of her closest friends and her brother, but there was no acknowledgement of her presence (in death, as in life) by Adele’s family. Bridget respected their desolation – their incapacity to accept what had happened to their future. She gave them space. Not that she knew what to do with hers.

Bridget eventually packed up Adele’s personal belongings and sent them to her parents by courier. She sincerely hoped that these remnants would soothe them somehow, would let them know that Bridget wasn’t taking anything from them, that Adele hadn’t been one who could be claimed, even by a lover. Bridget gave them everything except those things Adele had specifically gifted her: this cross, this necklace, this painting: symbols standing in for those things which were Adele and their love.

Bridget tried for months to obtain more information from Doctors Without Borders, but she wasn’t family, and they wouldn’t release details. She contacted one of Adele’s co-workers, a doctor who, she heard, suffered minor injuries in the same attack. She wasn't sure she got through: there were no return messages. She poured over the news and social media and learned what she could. She eventually realized that the little she knew had to be enough. Adele would remain an enigma in life and in death.

Bridget finally looked up, as if returning from a great distance. She hadn’t lived those memories for a long time. She lifted her ocean blue eyes, pure and calm, to the young woman sitting (conspicuously still) on the couch beside her. Bridget’s expression was utterly open. Serene.

She took in that Franky’s emerald eyes had been, and still were, riveted on her. Slight movements (a cocked eyebrow, a lined forehead, quick glances upwards) betrayed a mind roiling with soul-felt complexities. Bridget knew what she was offering with this story. Now it was she who remained still. 

Raw emotions were written all over Franky's features. Bridget read compassion, empathy, care, kindness, gentleness and tender love. She knew these were spontaneous, evidence of the real Franky. She wasn't the least surprised, though, when troubling doubt followed. She knew the battle: unworthiness, vulnerability, fear. 

(Bridget silently pleaded for Franky to 'dig deep' here.)

She watched Franky breathe in. She saw her eyes flicker upward, as if for courage, before they flashed back to Bridget. There was a fierce intensity in them now. It is was if a definitive answer had pulsated from somewhere deep within her, one that held zero room for doubt. It leapt from her heart to her mind to her eyes, and, now, with piercing resolve, it appeared that she was ready to inscribe it on Bridget's soul. Her look spoke of utter devotion, certainty, unwavering acceptance and resolute strength. Bridget was awestruck and humbled.

Energy radiated off Franky. She fidgeted only momentarily before jumping to her feet, convinced, Bridget reckoned, that this kind of emotion required the dignity of being upright. Somehow, in lifting her long body from the couch, she had brought Bridget up with her. Had they been so entwined? Standing face to face, Franky's hands moved confidently to Bridget's now-familiar hips. She pulled her closer than either thought possible. They found repose in each other, Franky's arms now wrapped entirely around her Gidge, holding her like she would never let go. Bridget cried with shiny eyes into Franky's chest.

In the embrace was the silent agreement to let themselves fall - fast, far and deep - into a love that can break your heart: the kind that makes the best stories.

**Author's Note:**

> I have so enjoyed the time, creativity, talent that has gone into the stories already published. Good on ya, and thank you. I also enjoy the YouTube music videos put together by fans. They are awesome. I love this community of Fridget lovers.


End file.
